Friday, June 02, 2017

Refugee issue could swing support for a peace deal

The question of compensation for Jews from Arab
countries could be decisive in securing an Israeli majority in
favour of a final-status peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Dr Stan Urman: refugee issue would 'tip the scales'

According to a poll conducted by the Tami Steinmetz
Center for Peace Research and the Palestinian Center for Public
Opinion, a startling 40 percent of those who opposed the
parameters of a peace deal would switch to supporting it if the
issue of Jews from Arab countries were on the table.

The poll surveyed close to 2,500 Palestinians and Israelis on the
parameters of a final-status peace agreement. It presented a
“permanent agreement package” based on mutual recognition between
Israel and Palestine; establishing a demilitarized Palestinian
state within 1967 borders, annexing a number of settlement blocs
to Israel in exchange for land swaps, and turning West Jerusalem
into Israel’s capital and East Jerusalem into the capital of
Palestine. Palestinian refugees will have the right to return to
the Palestinian state; 100,000 of them will return to Israel as
part of a family unification program, while the rest will be
monetarily compensated. This was the "plan" presented during the
interviews:

Forty-eight percent of Israelis (41 percent of Jews and
88 percent of Arab citizens) and 42 percent of Palestinians in the
occupied territories said they support this outline.

The poll also included “incentives” to understand what
influences the views of both sides on a potential agreement. One
was: And if the Jews who left their homes and property in the
Arab countries when they had to leave following the 1948 War and
the establishment of the state of Israel will be compensated for
the lost assets left behind? If 40 percent of Jewish
Israelis who opposed the agreement were willing to
change their minds if the agreement also includes
compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries, this
incentive would 'tip the scales'.

Stan Urman, executive director of Justice for Jews from
Arab Countries, calls the finding 'astonishing.' He points out
that it that more Israelis chose this incentive than any other,
more than 'Israel being recognized as a Jewish state' and even
'access to Jerusalem's Jewish holy sites.'

"Without this clause, " says Dr Urman, " there is no
majority in favour; with it, a strong majority of Israelis would
support the peace agreement."

As the poll was funded by the EU, Dr Urman is confident
that JJAC could now approach European countries and show them
their own statistics which reveal that rights for Jewish refugees
from Arab countries are central to acceptance of any peace
agreement by Israel and Israelis.

3 comments:

This is a positive and hopeful research, that the uprooting of the Jews from Arab countries and their compensation as refugees could swing the support in Israel for a Peace Deal with the Palestinians. However, as I have shown in my own research and my own books, the cruel uprooting of the Jews from Arab Countries is not only a question of money re-compensation, it is also a historical and political subject that has been totally neglected, and that should be a landmark for reconciliation and peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors. You are invited to watch my film on this subject: THE POMEGRANATE OF RECONCILIATION AND HONOR, on YoutTube. And my book: FROM THE NILE TO THE JORDAN is a Bestseller on www.amazon.com

Do I or anyone want my ancestor's home in Baghdad, Basra, Hal'b, Damascus, Cairo, Iskandariya, Tripoli, Oran, Constantine, Alger, Tetouan, Kairouan, Beirut?? hahahahaha what for? Thinking of going back? hahahahahahahahaFirst thing, they will ask me proof that it was so or where it was. No idea and even if I had, I would be in the hands of the local bakhshish-grabber whose confirmation will be required. Let's not be silly... Everything has been erased voluntarily and officially in the arab countries. they know; we know.What we want is the recognition of ETHNIC CLEANSING of Jews (then, now... other minorities) in the Arab countries. An out right admission that there are TWO peoples who lost their homes in this feud. In fact a recognition that what actually happened is a POPULATION EXCHANGE (see historic precedents, the Atatürk-Venizelos agreement and the settlement at the 1947 Partition of India. No compensation is actually owed to either side.) Period.That settles the "palestinian" issue of compensation too. Israelis probably view this differently but they certainly have NO IDEA where their grandparents' home might have been.

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)